OnCars India Buzz: 16 July 2012

- Gallus Strobel of Triberg, the mayor of Black Forest, a small town in Germany has invited quite a handful of remarks upping himself ranging from 'silly', 'sexist', 'male pigheadedness' to 'brilliant' on his latest decision to have female-only parking spots all across the town, which are wider and well-lit than the regular parking spots.

- Tata Motors is reportedly in talks with the Brazilian authorities about setting up a plant to assemble Jaguar and Land Rover models. The move to set up a new plant in Brazil will get more shape once, the company is assured that it can produce cars in sufficient volume to cater to the world's third-biggest car market. 

- Ford India has launhced a new top-end variant, Titanium of its Ford Classic sedan at a starting price of Rs 6.96 lakh. The new Ford Classic Titanium will be offered in both petrol and diesel options, comes loaded with new features and also with a comprehensive 2 year or 100,000kms warranty, whichever comes first. 

- Hyundai India who is been contemplating to set up a diesel engine manufacturing facility in the country for quite some time now, has yet again postponed its plans, due to the current ambiguity regarding diesel prices and the tax on diesel cars. The South Korean company has been planning to infuse an investment of close of Rs 400 crore to set up the diesel engine manufacturing facility at the company's plant in Sriperumbudur near Chennai.

- BMW India is planning to locally assemble its entire range of cars from its Mini brand in order to cut down the pricing of the current models, which are being imported from international markets, attracting heavy import duties. The Mini range could be locally put together at BMW's plant in Chennai where the X1, the 3-Series and the 5-Series are currently assembled. 

- According to reports, BMW India who have already started the marketing activities for its upcoming F30 3-Series sedan last week is flexing its muscles to launch the much-awaited sedan on 3 August 2012 in the Indian market.

- General Motors is planning to collaborate with its Chinese partner SAIC to develop a new range of highly efficient and powerful turbo engines in 1.2-litre, 1.4-litre and 1.5-litre configurations. The new engines are most likely to make their way into the new Chevrolet Cruze, Chevrolet Sail hatchback and the Sail sedan and will be built at a new plant in Shenyang, China, which is currently under construction.

- The recently launched Renault Duster SUV will now also be offered with additional jump-seats in the boot, which will let your stash away your kids at the back. These seats, however, will be provided as a dealer level accessory and not a company / ARAI tested fitment. Renault India has confirmed that this accessory will be available soon, along with other bits like bull-bars, extended side steps etc. The carmaker hasn’t commented on the pricing though. 

- Honda has apparently decided to keep its ninth-generation Honda Civic away from the Indian market, due to the high price of the car coupled with the absence of a diesel engine. So, while countries like the U.S.A, Australia and Thailand flaunt the new Civic on their streets, India will have to let go of the anticipation of the new sedan. 

- Tata Motors seem to be finally moving forward from the stage of denial to the stage of acceptance that their design language or rather lack of, needs to be heavily updated if it ever hopes to make a comeback in the Indian market and give its competition some serious run for their respective rupees. According to reports, Tata Motors will now be overhauling its complete design architecture and will hire new design engineers to do the job. The first model to wear the new design language is most likely to be the third-generation Tata Indica, which is expected to be ready by 2014.

- Automobile manufacturers on Friday asked the government to expedite implementation of "one country one fuel" policy by speeding up the notification of more cities under BS-IV fuel coverage. At present, BS-IV norms are applicable only in 13 cities and the government has kept notification for seven cities pending due to non-availability of high quality fuel.

- The highly anticipated Ford EcoSport compact SUV has finally gone on sale in Brazil with prices starting from Rs 14.47 lakh. The compact SUV is being offered in three variants, the base model -Ford EcoSport 1.6 (EBA3), EcoSport Freestyle 1.6 (EFA3) priced at Rs 16.22 lakh and EcoSport Freestyle 1.6 (EFB3) priced at 17.22 lakh. The Ford EcoSport will be launched in over 50 international markets around the globe in the coming months. In India, the compact SUV is expected to be priced below Rs 9 lakh. 

- Mahindra First Choice, India’s first multi-brand pre-owned car firm, is strongly planning to expand its presence in the country’s used car market. According to a top official of the Mahindra & Mahindra group, the company, which is currently running over 150 outlets, plans to take the number up to 350 by 2015 by infusing an investment of over Rs 250 crore.